How to Integrate Social Selling into Your Marketing Strategy in 6 Simple Steps

Feeling frustrated with underwhelming online shopping experiences and noticing a drop in sales? Does it seem like your social media platforms are losing their appeal, resulting in dwindling engagement and a lack of site visitors? As the person in charge, the pressure is on to find a solution. It's crunch time, and you need to come up with a game-changing strategy. Perhaps you're a retailer relying on an ecommerce community, selling products through Instagram, but it's just not cutting it anymore. How can you create a seamless path to purchase that will reignite excitement and boost your business?

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Social commerce goes beyond selling on social media platforms, there are other new trends like livestream shopping and shoppable stories that are storming the retail industry. Combining e-commerce with socially interactive, live videos is no longer an optional activity but a must-have for high-street and online stores that want to thrive in the future. To ensure you stay ahead of your competitors, we've crafted a straightforward 6-step guide that we'll help you execute once you reach out to us. Prepare to be blown away by some eye-opening statistics that will immediately disrupt your marketing strategy and make it crystal clear that you need to take action now to gain a competitive edge. 

Why is Social Commerce a Necessity for your Retail Marketing Strategy?

Consumers are seeking immersive experiences, social interaction, and entertainment, so incorporating social and video components into your marketing strategy is paramount. The future of online shopping lies in the fusion of entertainment, socializing, and education—going beyond static product images and descriptions. Live shopping events and shoppable videos for example offer the perfect shopportunities to deliver on these consumer expectations.

How can you master social commerce in 6 steps?

1. Goals

Define in your team what are the problem areas of your business and what are your key business goals. Organic growth of your customer base, customer loyalty, higher engagement rates, increased product conversions?

2. Target audience‍

Who is your most popular type of customer? Think about age, gender, preferences, communication, engagement etc. By gaining insights into the preferences, behaviors, and demographics of your target audience, we’ll help you identify which social shopping format would resonate and appeal to their specific needs and desires.

3. Value proposition

We’re commonly asked to help clients pinpoint What is their social commerce value proposition? And it comes down to identifying the genuine, distinct, and compelling reason for customers to make purchases from your shoppable live events or videos. Think about what benefits does the customer gain when they participate in live shopping events? Here are a few examples:

• Exclusive Access: Customers get the opportunity to be the first ones to explore new products introduced during live events. They have the chance to discover unique items that are exclusively available during these events.
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• Discounts and Bonuses: Customers can enjoy special discounts or receive bonus offers when they make purchases during live shows. These exclusive deals incentivize them to buy products during the event.

4. Formats

Choose the social commerce formats that align best with your brand and resonate with your audience. While live shopping is immensely popular, other formats like pre-recorded shoppable videos and shoppable stories offer excellent alternatives. With platforms like LiSA, we can make it fully shoppable for you! Just tell us what products you’d like to sell and LiSA can add the product tiles and link it to the basket so consumers can checkout all in one fast, streamlined process within your app or website.

5. Developing a Concept

It's time to strategize and set up a test plan. Begin by defining your concept: How many live shows, videos, or short stories will be involved? Who will be in charge of developing the concept? Who will create the content, influencers or sales associates? How long will the trial period last? How will you measure success? Don't forget to consider the physical set-up, advertising budget, and the specific advertising activities you'll undertake.

6. Test, Learn, Repeat

Put theory to the test! Once you’ve decided which social commerce format you’d like to implement, e.g. live shopping events or shoppable videos and stories it’s time to go live and test it out. See how your audience responds, what they like and don’t like. Be open to learning and adapting your social shopping format to suit your community. Utilize the analytics, stats and unfiltered feedback from your customers as a powerful tool to understand their needs and preferences, and leverage that information to improve and tailor your social commerce strategy to consumer demands.

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What do industry experts say?

Executives overwhelmingly agree that social commerce is driving an increasing portion of their company’s marketing-driven revenue. About eight in 10 expect to be selling their products or services via social commerce within the next three years. And 77% of consumers will choose a brand over a competitor after a positive experience with a brand through social commerce.

‍A recent study shows that as many as 91% of consumers want to see more online video content from brands. Furthermore, live videos on social commerce platforms generate six times more interactions compared to regular videos.

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Interested in starting social commerce?

Social commerce has revolutionized the way businesses and consumers interact, and social shopping is its newest frontier. Now is the time to be adaptable and lean into change. We know this can be daunting without the right support, that’s why LiSA offers strategy workshops and consulting services where we look at your business and what would be the best formats based on the needs, audience groups, consumer preferences and size of your business. This is a unique service that we offer alongside the intuitive social layer platform, unlike any other social commerce provider in the market.

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“Once you have a strategy, implementing it with LiSA is really easy! You can bet that after this workshop you can rock your own live shopping channel all by yourself! But, of course we’re always by your side to help when needed.” - CEO of LiSA, Sophie Frères

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We want to see you succeed and achieve your targets, whether it’s improving brand engagement, boosting sales or increasing brand awareness. We have something to suit every business, just get in touch with us and we’ll help you implement social commerce into your marketing strategy in a way that’s right and affordable for your business.

Any questions to this blog article? Please contact Kathrin Gering - kathrin@hello-lisa.com